Alabama

NATIONAL BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

Despite the demonstrable importance and ubiquity of contraception, the truth is that
ensuring that every pregnancy is wanted and planned is difficult, at both the individual
and the societal levels. For the typical American woman to have two children, she will
spend close to three years pregnant, postpartum or attempting to become pregnant, and about three
decades—more than three-quarters of her reproductive life—trying to avoid pregnancy. Not
all women, however, are successful: About half of all pregnancies in the United States
each year—more than three million of them—are unintended. By age 45, more than half of all
American women will have experienced an unintended pregnancy, and at 2008 rates about three in ten will
have had an abortion. Nonetheless, contraceptive use can and does dramatically reduce
women's odds of having an unintended pregnancy.

DEMOGRAPHICS

In 2013, there were 1,022,750 women of reproductive age (aged 13–44) in Alabama, 545,010 of whom were in need of contraceptive services and supplies. Of these:

RACE/ETHNICITY: 330,230 were non-Hispanic white; 169,600 were non-Hispanic black; and 23,040 were Hispanic.

In 2013 , there were 323,490 women in Alabama in need of publicly supported contraceptive services and supplies. Of these, 74,490 were in need of publicly supported services because they were sexually active teenagers, and 249,000 because they had incomes below 250% of the federal poverty level.

In 2012–2013, 20% of women aged 15–44 in Alabama were uninsured, while 16% were enrolled in Medicaid.

PREGNANCIES, BIRTHS AND ABORTIONS

In 2011, there were 81,700 pregnancies to the 959,278 women of reproductive age (15-44) in Alabama; of those that did not result in miscarriages or stillbirths, 73% resulted in live births and 12% in induced abortions.

In 2010, 55% of pregnancies in Alabama were unintended. There were 46,000 unintended pregnancies to women in Alabama, producing an unintended pregnancy rate of 48 per 1,000 women of reproductive age.

Of all unintended pregnancies in Alabama in 2010, 64% resulted in live births and 21% resulted in induced abortions.

In 2010, 61.6% of unplanned births in Alabama were publicly funded, compared with 58.2% of all births and 38.4% of planned births.

Of the 34,900 publicly funded births in Alabama in 2010, 18,200 were unplanned.

Unintended pregnancies in Alabama accounted for $323.2 million in public costs in 2010, including $250.5 million in federal costs and $72.6 million in state costs.

In 2011, 9,550 women obtained abortions in Alabama, producing a rate of 10 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. Some of these women were from other states, and some Alabama residents had abortions in other states, so this rate may not reflect the abortion rate of state residents. The rate declined 15% since 2008, when it was 11.7 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44. Alabama represents 0.9% of all abortions in the United States.

In 2011, there were 8 abortion providers in Alabama; 7 of those were clinics. This represents a 0% increase in overall providers and a 14% decrease in clinics from 2008, when there were 8 abortion providers overall, of which 7 were abortion clinics.

In 2011, 93% of Alabama counties had no abortion clinic; 59% of Alabama women lived in these counties.

IMPACT OF PUBLICLY FUNDED CONTRACEPTIVE SERVICES

Publicly funded family planning services help women to avoid pregnancies they do not want and to plan pregnancies they do. In 2013, publicly funded family planning services helped women in Alabama avoid 26,500 unintended pregnancies, which would likely have resulted in about 13,100 unplanned births and 9,000 abortions.

Contraceptive services provided at Title X-supported centers in Alabama helped prevent 23,800 unintended pregnancies, which would likely have resulted in about 11,800 unplanned births and 8,100 abortions.

The publicly funded family planning services provided at safety-net centers in Alabama saved the federal and state governments $136,988,000 in 2010.